Name: Gruel
Ingredients: boiling water; portable soup; mushrooms; ketchup; sweet herbs; spices; lemon zest

Why it works: Mushroom and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,633 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Bring a sufficient quantity of water to a boil in a pan.
Stir in the ingredients and let it boil until smooth.
If using herbs or spices, boil them in the water first and strain them out before adding the meal.
For a nourishing dish, add portable soup and mushrooms or a bit of ketchup.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ketchup + lemontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,447 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).